Acceptance

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, and if you guys are tired of hearing about it I completely understand. I just need to work this out in my head, and on paper or whatever. It helps that way...

My life is brilliant. My love is pure. I saw an angel. Of that I'm sure. You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful, it's true.

We left the doctor's office on March 1, 2006. Blissful. We had just heard the most precious sound in the world. The sound of Dylan's beating heart. I clutched the picture close to me, afraid that I would wrinkle it or it would get lost. We stared at it as we walked to the car. I cried, Derick cried...he was speechless. The picture showed that of a tiny baby, the love of our lives. They said he was the size of the tip of Derick's pinky finger. Unbelievable that we could love someone so much. Derick started up the car, and the song played on the radio. It was Dylan's song. I cried, listening to the song, staring at the picture for hours...dreaming. Our lives were perfect.

Then something went terribly wrong. Not long after we listened to the same song, in the same car, only this time we were on our way home from his funeral. It was Dylan's song. Our song. Breathless...speechless...hopeless...we carried on with our lives the only way we knew how.

Fast forward- December 13, 2006

We left the hospital, terrified. We were going to loose that baby too. The cerclage wasn't scheduled, no one was doing anything. Why weren't they doing anything?! Why weren't they trying to save our son?

The water broke, terror sets in, again. We rush to the hospital, they tell me that maybe the sack will repair itself. They pushed me off until the following day. The emotional impact of him being born on Christmas day would be unbearable for the rest of my life. December will never be the same.

Fast forward again- July 1, 2008

I'm sitting here thinking. Thinking about what could have/should have been done. And I realize now, there was NOTHING that could have been done. Nothing. Nothing.

Riley was going to die, and there was nothing that anyone could do. Not me, not my doctors...not even God.

From a medical standpoint, at 14 weeks with a cervix that short and contractions there was nothing that could have been done to save his life. It was just to early. If I had been closer to 20 weeks, he may have had a shot. It would have been a long and hard fight, but it would have been an opportunity at life. Not at 14 weeks. Not even a cerclage could hold him in there for 10 weeks. Should they have given him a chance? Absolutely. But I understand their hesitance to do drastic measures. They knew...I just didn't know...that there was nothing that could have been done. To them, it was just another 'miscarriage' and to me it was my life. My son. It was my hopes and dreams, my future, and my saving grace.

I accept that, now. It wasn't until I was given the incredible chance to love Lily that I was able to achieve acceptance. Two years it took and so many tears that I can no longer cry over trivial things. A year ago I didn't think I would be here...7 months ago, I didn't think I would be here. I thought that I would spend the rest of my life griefstricken, but in reality...I'm not. I'm incredibly grateful to have my boys in my life. They taught me some of life's greatest lessons and for that I am a better human being. But I'm also incredibly grateful to be able to pass those lessons onto Lily. I have the opportunity to make her a great human being, to teach her profound lessons of life, and to love her unconditionally until the day that I join her brothers. For that opportunity, I have no words.

So you see...acceptance is a part of the process. I didn't want to accept things, and I fought it for a very long time. Now that I'm here, it doesn't mean that I love Dylan and Riley any less or that I love Lily any more. It's just that I'm here, and I can't go back. I smile because I'm happy, not so that other's think I'm ok. I laugh because I mean it, not because if I didn't other people would know something is wrong. And I cry for my sons, not because of grief, but because of everything else. Because of the hole's in my heart where they should be and the deffinate absence of them in our pictures and in our home. Because I loved them so much that I had to let them go.